Creativity and hard work brings home the gold

Eight-year-old Santina Fronte, middle, poses with her parents at her lemonade stand this past Lemonade Day. Fronte was awarded the Best Stand Trophy for her rainbow themed lemonade stand at this year’s Lemonade Days. Photo Submitted

It may not have been a pot but for one lemonade sales girl, there was gold under the rainbow.

Eight-year-old Santina Fronte was awarded the Best Stand Trophy for her rainbow themed lemonade stand at this year’s Lemonade Days.

“Well I love rainbows, so I wanted to do a rainbow stand that looked like a rainbow,” said Fronte.

“I wanted people to see the colour in life.”

This was Fronte’s first year participating in Lemonade Day. She said she had so much fun that she wants to do it again next year.

“I felt pretty good about it, winning third place for my lemonade and first place for my Lemonade Day stand,” said Fronte.

In building her stand, which was a traditional lemonade stand with a rainbow arch, Fronte had help from her parents.

“It was pretty elaborate,” said Joanne Belcastro, Fronte’s mom.

The build took a little over a month to complete with most of the work happening on weekends or in the evening.

And while her parents helped, part of the deal when Fronte said she wanted to participate in Lemonade Day this year was that she had to put the work in.

“We weren’t going to do this for her she had to understand opening up a business from start to finish she needed to know how much work was involved in opening up a business,” said Belcastro.

“The deal was that she had to put her hours in or else we weren’t going to do the lemonade stand,” she said.

From attending, the Lemonade day instructional meetings, to building the stand, to the actual sales day, Fronte put in the work.

“She was a great trooper, she painted away,” said Belcastro.

“She painted…to the point where she says, ‘mom I can’t paint anymore, I don’t want to paint anymore I hate painting,’

While preparing the award-winning stand was the most work, Belcastro said that the meetings were an excellent resource.

“The meetings were really educational, so we enjoyed that,” she said, “It really taught her a lot.”

Belcastro said that the teaching sessions did a really good job of breaking down the entrepreneurial and business concepts so that they were easy for Fronte to understand.

Both of Fronte’s parents are business owners which may be why she has always had an entrepreneurial spark.

“Anywhere were she could make money she would do it,” said Belcastro, “if it was selling lemonade or cookies or even dolls on the corner of the street she would.”

“It’s in her blood,” she said.

The hard work didn’t end for Fronte with the completion of her stand, although the most fun started.

“The best part was probably selling my lemonade,” said Fronte.

On Lemonade Day, Fronte set up at the bottle depot and said she was really busy.

“It was crazy busy,” said Belcastro.

Without realizing how much work the whole process was from start to finish, Belcastro is really proud that her daughter not only stuck it out and completed her lemonade stand but won the Best Stand Trophy.

“I’m just proud, proud of all the hard work and dedication that she’s put into it,” said Belcastro.